I knew I was hearing the words he’d spoken before he died.
“A little nap. To save up energy for when it’s brighter out.”
A nap, to conserve energy?
I thought of Rose.
I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the fact that I’d just crawled through piles of snow, or the fact that I was drenched head to toe in sweat in the dead of winter.
Was Rose out of energy?
No. It had to be more complicated than that. Pauz had expressed a kind of glee.
He’d wanted to see my face, when I found out.
Why?
Rose had spent energy to break the mirror and the ice, back when we’d first met. She’d taken her time recuperating.
Just yesterday, she’d broken the windows. Same thing, closer together.
She was in a coma of sorts.
Conserving energy.
What was different?
I was asking myself the question, but I knew the answer. Ergo, the chill.
Me.
I was different.
I was stronger. I was able to talk to ghosts like Evan.
Why? What was the dark, sick joke that Pauz would find funny?
He was an imp that subverted the natural order. He’d affected me. Instead of me feeding power to Rose…
Rose was feeding power to me.
I could imagine the imp’s laughter, mocking me. His glee, if he could see me now, deep in the woods, knowing that every second I was operating like this, I was taking from Rose, helpless to do anything about it.
I shivered again.
“Thanks, Evan,” I said. I looked down at the ghost. “Good tip.”
“A little nap,” he said.
He was in pure echo mode, now.
Which was a riddle unto itself.
“Come on,” I said.
I led him forward, taking the time to very carefully reload the shotgun without hitting my finger.
He flickered again.
“This way, then” I said.
Every interaction was alerting the monster, the goblin-beast. But I could live with that. This was a hunt.
Moving at a right angle to the direction we’d been going didn’t elicit any more flickers until we’d walked for about a minute.
Right. It was a question of territory, then.
Well, this could be a staging ground, then. I would have liked to get further away from the other Others, but this would do.
I drew the holly branches from where they were tucked against my chest by jacket an chain, and I tossed them to the ground.
The chain was my other tool. Still slick with glamour.
“Thing to keep in mind, Evan,” I said, talking to him as I threaded the end of the chain through the loop of the dial lock at the far end, “Is humans have been hunting things bigger than them for a very long time. We’re built for it. Most of us have pretty good brains in our heads, we’ve got a natural endurance, and the ability to use tools. We can hold water, and in a sheer endurance run, we can cover more distance than a deer, a gazelle, or a mammoth.”
“I don’t think anyone’s ever going to come,” he whispered, eyes down on the ground.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I said, affecting fake cheer. “I came. And so long as we keep talking, our guest should come too.”
I jammed a twig through the chain, then checked my handiwork.
“A little nap,” he said. Hearing it for the Nth time, I wondered if he was trying to convince himself.
“No time for napping,” I said. “I need you alert. I know you’re not up to a lot of thinking like this, but I’m relying on you for a hint that he’s coming.”
Hard to climb a tree with one hand, but I did it, just to get to a better vantage point. I made it up as high as I could, then wound the end of the chain around a thick section of trunk, higher up.
“By the way,” I said. “Introductions may be in order. June, meet Evan,” I said.
I drew the hatchet, then buried it in the trunk. I wound the end of the chain around the handle and blade.
I hopped down more than I climbed down, crossed a short distance, then climbed a nearby tree.
“The wolf,” Evan said.
“Fuck,” I said. “Excuse my language. Probably not appropriate around an eight-year old. How close?”
No response. But when I looked, Evan didn’t look like he was afraid. More an observation.
Close-ish, then?
I didn’t say it aloud. If every word I said reeled the Other in closer, I’d have to control it.
I used the tip of the shotgun to catch the dangling chain and dragged it over my way until I could hook it with my thumb. I hooked it around a branch.
Before I climbed down, I ran my hand along the chain I could reach.
Cold. Conductivity. Hidden.
I tried to push ideas into it. To change what it was.
For now, it was simply a very elaborate clothesline, about twelve or fifteen feet above the ground. A metal clothesline charged with the cold from the hatchet.
I hopped down.
This time, I didn’t interact with Evan. No use bringing the goblin closer. Not yet.
I tramped in the snow, stomping. Following a set path. Here and there, I glanced at Evan, who was curled up and trying to stay warm. Replaying a memory. I suspected it was from that same night he’d failed to stay warm, or he’d been too dehydrated, or something else had happened.
Sorry, little man, I thought. You didn’t deserve this.
Let’s fuck up that wolf.
I tore the bluish holly leaves from the branches, depositing them into the circle I’d stomped into the snow. I was careful to layer them so the leaves all touched. The little red berries were spaced out at even intervals.
I was so engrossed in the task I nearly forgot about the other thing I was supposed to be paying attention to.
Or was it more accurate to say the Other thing?
“The wolf… have to run,” Evan said, more agitated.
It was here. The circle wasn’t a circle. It was a ‘c’.
Which was by design, more or less.
I cocked the shotgun, winced in pain at the pain that caused my finger.
Such a little thing, so much pain.
He appeared in the woods, almost as if the shadows were binding together to give him a shape. One caked in filth and blood, but a shape all the same.
“No, no, have to run,” Evan said. He turned.
“Evan,” I said, sounding as authoritarian as I could. “Come to me.”
“Have to run,” he said, but he didn’t move.
“Safety, right? Think about safety. The treehouse? The hedge. The stream. I’m a kind of safety for you. Come here.”
“I-”
“Evan. Surviving ghost. I swear to you, I will help you.”
The words had power.
Evan listened. He came to my side. I reached out for him, and my hand passed through. I would have wanted to hold him, to crouch by his side, and protect him, or simply rest my hands on his shoulders.
What did it say, that I was willing to have contact with him?
I saw a leer on the wolf’s face as it paced around the clearing. Mocking me.
I kept Evan with me, walking around the edge of the circle of holly. Keeping the opening in mind.
He was a bully. He taunted. He’d charged Evan earlier just to see the ghost cower. He couldn’t speak, so he taunted with actions.
Would he do the same here?
Yes.
But not the way I’d planned, not the way I’d hoped.
He charged, but he did it at an oblique angle, bypassing the clothesline entirely.
Great, filthy paws stopped short of the barrier.